


Emptiness

by henshin



Category: Ninja Assassin
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 22:16:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/henshin/pseuds/henshin





	Emptiness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Neery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neery/gifts).



Berlin was exactly the same as before. The same people, the same colours, the same rush of cars and of people on the street, everyone always hurrying, always talking, always moving, always focused on the next thing they had to do. Driven by a sense of purpose, even if that purpose was to be short-lived.

It was strange to watch. Raizo had spent most of his life focused on surviving; it was what had pushed him to excel at combat and to tow the line perfectly within the walls of the clan's grounds. Later, the need for survival had been even more present, a constant thrum in his body to _move, keeping moving, they're coming for you_. The need for revenge was tied in with the need to survive; his life was always in jeopardy so long as his clan remained intact. The two became interwined, interchangable; one was the other. He could make no differentiation between them. But all that was gone now; he wasn't in any more danger than the average person on the street. And unlike all the people he passed, he had no pressing matters to attend to.

What he was feeling, he realised, was _emptiness_. He had nothing to do, no friends to see. No particular occupation to take up. He didn't _know_ anything, really; enough that he'd been able to to get by, certainly, but nothing that would sell him to a potential employer. He hadn't even had anywhere particular to go once he left the burnt-out ruins.

So he came to Berlin. It was a whim, something he'd never been particularly eager or able to indulge in since running away from his clan, and he found the opportunity exciting until he realised he had no idea where to go from here. Europol was still keeping tabs on him -- they couldn't let a known killer roam the streets -- but Maslow had promised they wouldn't interfere as he restarted his life. And aside from requesting Raizo's assistance with paperwork while Mika was in the hospital, Maslow had been as good as his word.

It wasn't just emptiness, he realised. He was _bored_. He went through the motions of finding a place to live, signing a lease, rebuilding his wardrobe, buying and preparing food. It kept him busy, at least for a little while, but it was all routine. Dull. Uninteresting. There was no _point_ to it aside from simply continuing to breathe. He continued to meditate and hone his skills to pass the time, and he spent a great many hours watching people on the street, trying to figure out what it was that made their lives worth living.

He needed change. He needed to find something to _do_.

 

Change came with a familiar face in a familiar location, but the combination was anything but usual. Mika Coretti had a washing machine and a dryer, he knew; he'd memorised the layout of her apartment several hours before Jin's aborted attempt to kill her. Yet here she was, struggling to lug two very heavy, overflowing bags of clothes into the laundromat at one in the morning, her progress hampered by the door and by her attempt to favour her left arm.

He moved to help her on instinct. "Let me," he said, grabbing one of the bags from her hands.

She glanced up, startled, and froze. "Raizo? What are you doing here?"

He was already tossing her clothes into one of the machines. "I live nearby." When he moved to relieve her of the second bag, she drew back, wincing as her movements stretched the wound in her chest. "I can do it myself."

He stepped away so she could move past him. "How is it?"

"Huh?"

He gestured. "Your chest."

"Oh. It's fine, I guess. It's getting better." She shrugged, biting her lip when the movement jarred the injury. Raizo ignored the urge to press further. It was surprisingly hard considering how many years' practice he'd had doing exactly that, but Mika was more than capable of taking care of herself.

"When did you get to Berlin?" she asked. "Last I heard from the agency, you were still tying up loose ends in Japan."

"About a month ago. I thought that if your organisation felt the need to tag me, I might as well make their job easier."

She grimaced. "Ryan told me about that. I wish they weren't monitoring you."

"Can't have a trained killer on the loose, after all." Shrugging was strange. So was his wry smile. Joking came more naturally, but physical expressions were something he was used to rationing, a tool to dispense with only when necessary: the face was not the only part of the body whose motions could give a person's thoughts away. Moving like a normal person still felt wrong, like he was attracting unnecessary attention. It was going to take a long time to fit in, and to get used to the feeling. "I expected it. And I can disappear anytime I want to."

She nodded, obviously uncomfortable with this turn in the conversation. "So. What have you been up to?"

"Nothing." Not quite true. "Waiting."

"Waiting ofr what?"

"For you to turn up." The words rolled off his tongue before he finished thinking them.

mika is uncomfortable, a little off guard, but glad to see him. He's surprised to find how glad he is to see her.

"waiting for what?"

"for you to turn up." the words roll off his tongue of their own accord. They surprise him. It's true, he realises: he has been waiting. She's what he's been looking for ever since his return, someone he feels comfortable with and who knows him. It's why he moved into the cheaper apartment complex across the street from hers.

"liar."

Obviously this all needs to be in the past tense.

She fishes in her pockets for the coins to start the machine but can't find enough. "here." he hands her the rest. The conversation moves on to why she's here. "what happened to your washing machine?"

"it broke." only .... how do you break a washing machine. Hmmm. Maybe she forgot to remove the lint from her dryer and it caught on fire? Or it got damaged in the fight between jin and raizo. In any case, her usual system is out of commission, and she hasn't exactly been eager to drag her laundry over here, especially with her injury, but she's finally out of things to wear.

Fic will end with them promising to meet up again, and raizo feeling more excited about life than he has in a while. If I have time before fics go up, I might add a scene in which he's strolling down a street somewhere and a "hiring" sign on a martial arts studio catches his eye. He gets a job teaching children self-defense and makes more friends. Mika takes him out every now and then and teaches him to enjoy new things: different food (he can't eat anything really spicy, or rich or pungent), movies, drinking. As they spend more time, he starts to realise that their relationship looks inherently romantic from an outsider's eye, and that mika doesn't like it when women try to chat him up at bars. This doesn't lead to a Conversation, but it does lead to him feeling optimistic about the future.


End file.
